First theatre of 2025 part 2

Elektra

I like the way that it makes no concessions to people who are not familiar with the Sophocles version of the story, it's straight into middle of the overall plot. The chorus are particularly wonderful and most of the staging worked for me, even if some of it is rather artificial.

The most obvious example is the way there's a 'THUMPSSS' noise every time someone says 'father' (THUMPSSS) - amusingly, someone stumbled over a line and said 'father' (THUMPSSS) too soon and whoever presses the THUMPSSS button either knew that it was a mistake or didn't catch it. "No" is said at a different pitch to the rest of the line every time too. And what was the airship doing?

It's fine, but the pricing is based on 'Look! Some actor who's been the lead in a Marvel film!' rather than anything else. If you do see it in London, go for the cheap seats.

The Haunted House

David Alnwick is a very good magician. He also likes doing story-based shows as well as his pure magic ones. As this new one is two hours long including the interval, it's unlikely to get to the Edinburgh Fringe, so I used it as an excuse to visit H in Sheffield where it had its premiere.

While I like his story shows because they are good, they're usually not as good.

This one is no exception, even if it does contain one of his best tricks... unfortunately added in slightly unnecessarily. Given the murder mystery of the plot, it would have been nice to see a version of another of his favourites. (Various audience members choose a card from a set where each has one of three things on it, one being relevant to them. In the best version of the trick, they're confessions about something they've done. The 'guessing' of which one they picked is done by pointing at them later and asking them things like "Why did you sleep with your brother's girlfriend??"*)

The big problem is that the solution to the mystery is too 'look at me, I wrote this, isn't it clever' for anyone to get or to think that you should have been able to get.

Again, it's fine but if it was chopped down to an hour, it'd be better.

Comet of 1812

Parts of it are fabulous, like the opening Prologue introducing all of the characters - not having read 1812, I just know Woody Allen's speed-reading of it joke** and the history it's about - and the opening of the second act:

"In 19th Century Russia, we write letters, we write letters. We put down on paper what is happening in our lives."

.. which is so wonderful for re-immersing you into the time, a commentary about musicals (where people sing songs, sing songs, on what is happening in their lives), and provides a fab way to show the position the heroine is in. I was surprised that bit got so few laughs when I saw it.

But other parts feel like the author had read Writing Musicals For Dummies, should that exist: "In anything that's not a comedy, it's very important to have a comedy song featuring an otherwise very minor character one third the way through the second half" etc. Fortunately, those bits don't take away too much and it is a very good show.

I do think it could have used what I discover is part of the wider plot in the book: after everything that's covered in this, one character Natasha is involved with ends up having a leg amputated at the Battle of Borodino while being next to another one. There's a song in that.

A bigger problem that shouldn't affect anyone else seeing it was that I ended up standing behind Little Miss Chatterbox and her friends. The third time she started talking to them during one of the quieter bits of the show, I leaned over and went 'AHEM' just behind her ear. She jumped. It took a while, but when she started for the fourth time, I did it again. This attracted the attention of an usher, so I explained (very quietly in the corner on one side) what was happening, and waved when she did it for the fifth, sixth and seventh times. The eighth time wasn't too bad - it was a very quiet whisper - and had she done that each time I'd have been less cross.

The end result was an upgrade for me from the back of the circle to the stalls during the interval...

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* There's a more family-friendly version too, where what's on the cards is something fluffy but still gets 'guessed' in a less amusing (to the rest of the audience) way.

** "It's about Russia."